They’ve socialized my pants. 

Get-Along-Husband took me shopping the other night, and I bought a couple of pretty sweaters. I didn’t try them on, because the size, petite small, has always been a good fit in those brands. I brought them home, put them on, and both of them looked like I was wearing a tent. A granny-tent.

Now, I know a smart person tries everything on before bringing it home.  But I’m not a smart person. What I am, is a person who has learned to rely on labeling as a useful time-saver. This is not totally unreasonable, right? But aside from the inconvenience of having to return these and then try and find things that actually fit, this isn’t really a big deal in the long run. This is a first world problem of the type that people rightly denigrate.

But there’s another real problem of the first world that’s closely related to this. I’ve concluded after so many experiences like this over the last few years, that the first world contains very few people who are properly proportioned anymore. My former petite-smalls are now apparently designed to hide quite a bit of unsightly belly fat. They look awful. Jeans that fit me in the waist have no butt, because people are either emaciated or dumpy. It’s terrifying how unhealthy we all are.

The thing that just broke me recently is this outrage, which I photographed at Old Navy:

By “revolution”, they mean the socialist one.

I can assure you that Old Navy is not eating those extra costs. If I only require two yards of cloth to cover my body, I am the one who is expected to cough up the funds required to help cover the body of someone else who requires five yards of cloth.

We’ve gone from fat-shaming to health-shaming. It’s not even just social disapproval, but outright punition. It’s to the point where you can’t even tell people who’ve asked what they can do to maintain a healthy body without becoming a pariah for acting like you’re better than somebody else.

I stick to a diet that keeps me healthy. I’m vigilant about my physical activity. I put myself to bed at a reasonable hour. I get as much sunlight as I can, and take my Vitamin D supplements. I do a whole lot of things that contribute to my good health. It’s not an accident of genetics or socioeconomic status that I’m not a tub of lard. My good health, and my consequently well-proportioned body have not come without a cost to me. I’ve worked for that, and I’ve paid for that.

I take responsibility for my own health, and you should have to do that, too. Many of the things I do to take care of myself cost more up front than just letting things go would. But the amount I’m saving myself and the collective (thanks, socialism!) in health care and lost productivity makes my health a true net gain, financially. But, up front, I pay for this.

Now I’m being asked to subsidize people who refuse to take those steps. Some of them even desire to remain fat. And you’re a very bad person if you think there’s anything wrong with that. Not only do I have to pay extra for my health care, and in taxes for medicaid or medicare and disability; not only do I have to keep my mouth shut about your obvious problem; NOW I HAVE TO LITERALLY PAY TO  COVER YOUR FAT ^$$.

No, I’m not sorry I put it that way, dear Church Lady. I felt like channeling Karl Denninger this morning, caps and italics and ugly words and all.

You should feel bad about your poor health. How else are you going to be motivated to do anything about it? Contrary to the narrative about “healthy at any size” and “beautiful at any size”, the fact is that if you are overweight, you are sick. Probably not beautiful, either, but this is not about your looks. This is not about who you are as a person. This is not about whether I like to look at you or not. This is not about making you feel bad for other people’s entertainment.

Fat “shaming” is a lie from Satan. Your size has everything to do with your health, both physical and mental, and I do think spiritual as well. And you’re dragging the rest of us down with you.

Many people wouldn’t even care how sick other people were if they didn’t have to pay for it. I admit, the fact that I pay out the nose for my own health and then even more for other people’s is incredibly galling. It’s not just health and clothing. I also have a large family to raise, and I’m personally footing both the cost of their education and other families’ education, too. My numerous kids are going to be on the hook, not only for their own parents’ old age, but for the socialized elderly care of people who couldn’t be bothered to raise their own children.

In this now-fully socialized society, even the “capitalists”, are doing things on the socialist model. As Old Navy amply demonstrates, the more good I do, the more I end up paying because other people don’t want to.

So, you ask, did Atlas shrug? Did you boycott the stupid store, as they richly deserve?

Sigh. To tell the truth, it’s hard to find those fleece-lined leggings anywhere else, and it’s cold on that morning run, so this time, Atlas shouldered the burden. This time, as in most other areas of my life, I ate the cost of somebody else’s poor choices. Whether for lack of information, or motivation, or self-respect, or whatever the excuse, I paid more than I should have had to for the amount of goods I received so that others could slack off. As a responsible person in a society of irresponsible people, I do this daily, in a hundred chaffing little ways.

Fat acceptance–nay, fat supremacy–is killing people. And it’s making me just shy of crazy.

OK, I’m done. You can go back to your cheesecake now. Discuss on Gab, MeWe, or Social Galactic.